Elemental Switch: Rewrite
by PrincessFoxSpaceNinja
Summary: When the Ninjas showed up and saved Nya from the Skulkin, she had hoped that one of them would be her brother, Kai, who she witnessed getting thrown from the mountain by Samukai. Unfortunately, she was wrong and her brother was likely dead. When Kai arrived at the Skulkin's hideout to save, it was too late. So, to avoid losing his mind, he tries to make a new life in a new place.


Wu accepted Skylor as his student back when she was a little girl of four.

Her mother, the previous Master of Fire, left her there to protect her from her father. And maybe, Wu realised, to give him something to keep him distracted after his first student left and his brother was banished and he had to hide the Golden Weapons from him.

Skylor was a gifted student. Wu was proud of her, but he was worried about how her father might react if he found out that she was there. Worried about a lot of things, actually.

She tried too hard. Fought too had. She never asked about her parents, which was good, but at the same time, concerning.

As she grew up, he also noticed that she had absolutely no skills with people her own age. She had to be home-schooled when Wu realised this, which was a safer choice, not for Skylor, but for the other children at the school.

When she was thirteen, Wu sent her to town to make some friends, and was hopeful that she would, but he was wrong. Instead of friends, she came back with tea. Which he appreciated, yes, but no.

Two years later, when she was fifteen, Wu went out and found the Master of Ice in the form of young Griffin Turner, who was skating in circles on a lake and dropped everything to come with Wu when he promised ninja-training.

Sure, he was a year or two younger than Skylor, but he seemed well-behaved and quiet enough to ease the girl into accepting it when Wu brought in more students to find the Golden Weapons when the time comes. Dark times were coming, and Ninjago needed Spinjitsu Masters to protect it when they finally arrived.

Sadly, Skylor wasn't too impressed with Griffin when she was introduced to him.

"He looks like he'll break the moment I breathe on him, Sensei," Skylor said, ignoring the fact that Griffin was standing right next to her with a sad look on his face. "And what's with the sunglasses? He looks like a douche."

"That's not very nice, Skylor," Wu scolded. "He seems like a nice young man…"

"If you brought me here to set me up with her, the answer is no," Griffin said, folding his arms. "She's a jerk and I only followed you up this mountain because you promised Ninja-training and it sounded cool."

Skylor had a total look of disgust on her face when Griffin asked Wu if he was trying to set them up. "Sensei!"

"I went out looking for students, and I was hoping that this nice young man might ease you into the idea," Wu told her. "Why don't you show Griffin around while I go prepare some tea?"

It took a while, a lot of patience and Griffin accidentally hitting Skylor with the practice-sword for the two of them to finally get along, but when they did, they were thick as thieves.

Wu took this as a signal to go out and retrieve his next student.

Like when he went out to get Griffin, he didn't give any warning.

The next student was Karloff, the Master of Earth, who he discovered at the top of Ninjago Peak, wearing what looked like some kind of mechanical flying device. Wu watched as the gigantic Metalonian youth glided for a few minutes thanks to the wings, but was thrown back into the mountain by the wind.

He was in Ninjago for some kind of inventor's competition but when he found out that he was too old to compete because the competition was for people between the ages of fourteen and sixteen and he himself was seventeen, he left to test his invention by himself.

Funnily enough, Karloff looked much older than seventeen, with a full beard that Wu would have envied back when he himself was that age.

Griffin hid behind Skylor the moment Karloff walked in behind Wu, and even Skylor seemed a little hesitant to approach Karloff. Wu told them to be nice to each other, and left to make some tea before things got _really_ weird.

Unlike Griffin, Karloff was loud and ungraceful. He snored, his main way of attacking was by crashing into his enemies, which Skylor and the practicing dummy found out the hard way, and everyone found out that Griffin wore sunglasses because he'd get migraines without them when Karloff started sleepwalking and accidentally stepped on them.

But Karloff also felt bad easily, and took a very cranky Griffin all the way to Ninjago City to get a new pair of sunglasses while begging Skylor to come along as muscle, which she did proudly.

When they came back, Wu had gone out to retrieve the Master of Lightning.

Ash was easily found in Ninjago City, where he was busy terrorising the world from his bike. Wu climbed on behind Ash without him even noticing, and sat behind the teenager the whole afternoon, drinking his tea calmly until Mr. Rebellious Teenager went to get gas and he turned around.

He took everything in stride and accepted Wu's offer to train him to be a ninja, and Wu wondered to himself how ready his other three pupils were to face real enemies. Ash's parents were very happy from what Wu could hear over the phone, because their son was always getting in trouble and they thought that some ninja-ing would keep him out of trouble.

Wu wanted to laugh, because he remembered how his first student used to get in trouble all the time, _despite_ the "ninja-ing".

The next morning, Ash made quite the impression by picking a fight with Karloff, who easily pushed him over and sat on him while Skylor laughed at him and Griffin asked Wu for permission to go ice-skating, which Wu allowed as long as he was back by lunchtime.

Ash found himself getting his butt kicked whenever he tried picking fights with the other ninjas. Skylor had a lot more training and Ash pressed all her buttons. Karloff, as previously mentioned, simply pushed Ash over every time and sat on him or just ignored him and walked away. Griffin was much faster than Ash, despite being smaller and physically weaker. He managed to dodge most of his attacks and got in a lot of quick punches that made the fight short.

But he was improving. All of Wu's students were improving.

The last time Wu left to retrieve the Master of Amber, but he came back empty-handed due to him having been taken by some skeletons, along with his younger sister and the map to the Golden Weapons, which were entrusted to this student's parents a long time ago. Wu decided to send his students out to go retrieve all three before the skeletons could use them.

* * *

Cole met Zane shortly after running away from school, meeting him in the woods where the strange boy had been living for a long time now.

Zane didn't seem to mind when Cole kept changing appearance, and in exchange, Cole didn't mind when Zane showed him how he could control plants. They became friends and decided to stay together.

The two of them met Kai when he decided to stab Cole for no reason in a NinjaMart while buying knives, which, due to the stabbing incident, neither Cole nor Zane thought of as a good idea. They found Kai outside a few moments later, staring at his hand in confusion because it kept changing colour. He explained to them how he could absorb the powers, skills and memories of whoever he touches, and that he does not like being touched because of this.

He left shortly after, heading to the nearby warehouses in an old car after rudely telling the two of them to leave him alone.

But Cole and Zane were curious about the only other person with powers that they met, and ignored the guy's demands, following him on Zane's bike. He noticed them, apparently, but he only drove faster, crashing into one of the warehouses with some real purpose.

Cole decided that this guy was a lunatic. Zane agreed. People ran from the warehouse. Kai's car exploded and set fire to the warehouse.

Zane went inside to save the people inside without hesitating, while Cole hesitated a little before going in after him.

It appeared that everyone got out on time, except for Kai and a boy who appeared to be about thirteen. Kai fought off any attempts Cole and Zane made to get him out, but the younger boy was too unconscious to do anything.

He was also surprisingly light, which Cole didn't think was a good thing.

Zane eventually gave up on trying getting Kai out of the burning building, and used his powers to make a nearby potted cactus throw him out before he burned to death. It was painful, but Zane called it payback for stabbing Cole.

Kai was not happy with Cole and Zane following him, and he was even less happy with them suggesting that they take the younger boy to a hospital or something because of the smoke inhalation.

The younger boy woke up a couple of hours later to Kai threatening and attempting to strangle Cole and Zane trying to deescalate the fight.

When he called for attention, Kai immediately abandoned his goal of strangling Cole in favour of making sure that the younger boy was okay and mothering him, which was weird for someone who just burned down a warehouse.

The younger boy, apparently named Jay, was not very impressed with Kai trying to act like a worried parent, but he accepted it as just another simple fact of life. He silently tolerated the guy (with KNIVES strapped to him) fluttering all over him, then he asked about the two unknown people with them.

"They're leaving," Kai said in a way that meant that he would gladly resume his murder attempts on Cole if they didn't.

"You should stay the night with us," Jay said enthusiastically. "We have a motel room back in town and we could use a lift anyway since Kai destroyed our car."

Kai looked a little ashamed for destroying the car, but not enough, and Jay seemed to notice this.

He smacked Kai in the arm and walked over to Zane's bike, asking him all kinds of questions about it.

"I'm sorry I stabbed you and tried to strangle you," Kai muttered to Cole, sounding more annoyed than sorry. "I'm just not having the best time right now."

"Yeah, but it's not like you've been stabbed," Cole said, shapeshifting into his real body to tower over Kai. Kai looked somewhat curious and proceeded to shapeshift into Cole as well.

Jay let out a sharp scream when he noticed the two Coles and Zane dropped his helmet in surprise. Kai turned back into himself, looking very surprised before shuddering, as if he just went through a very unpleasant experience.

Zane decided that Jay was going to ride the bike with him, but agreed that it would be wise to drive slowly enough for Cole and Kai to walk beside him. After all, Jay was injured. Sure, Cole was too, but he used his shapeshifting to neatly reseal his wound as if it never existed.

Cole amused himself by turning into random people and watching Kai's reactions as he uncontrollably turned into the same random people. Kai didn't seem to have the ability to hold a transformation as long as Cole, turning back into himself after five minutes, and his clothes didn't change with him like Cole's did. The last bit was amusing when Cole turned into Jay and watched a copy of the much smaller boy fall over due to his clothes that were too big for him. The real Jay didn't seem to enjoy watching himself laughing at himself, though, and asked Cole to stop messing with Kai.

"It's not just your powers he copies," the younger boy warned. "He takes your memories and skills too. You better not mess with him, or he'll tell the whole world all your most embarrassing secrets."

Kai looked like he was considering this, so Cole stopped.

Jay had powers too, the ability to telekinetically move things, but he wasn't very good at using them, as he made a mess while making himself hot chocolate from the couch when they arrived at the motel. Kai noticed Cole and Zane's fascinated expressions, and informed them that snitches get stiches while avoiding flying saucers and threatening Zane with a fork.

Later that night, while Jay was sleeping in an awkward position, Kai told Cole and Zane how he met Jay a couple of months ago. Jay had just escaped from the group he'd just blown up with his car after being their captive for two years.

Kai himself had lost a sister to some Skulkin. He tried going after her, but their hideout was inaccessible and he left after a while, pretty sure that they'd killed her by accident, since those skeletons had no idea how to take care of a living being. He knew this, because he accidentally took their leader's skills and memories while trying to get his sister back.

He didn't want to talk about it.

The next morning, Zane was eating a sandwich in the fridge, and Kai freaked out, leaving the room through an open window. He came back a couple of hours later and the rest's history.

* * *

For some reason, Nya believed that her brother might be one of her mysterious rescuers.

She watched them closely from her cage, and wondered which one it was.

The Red Ninja was too female to be Kai, and while the other three were male, none of them were exactly right to be him. The White Ninja was too willowy and had a more elegant form than her brother would ever have. The Black Ninja, on the other hand, was too big and hairy. The Blue Ninja looked right for a moment, but his accent was that of someone from the city and to be honest, if he _was_ Kai, he'd be the first one to help her.

Instead, it was the old man who the others addressed as their sensei who set her free.

He didn't know where her brother was, but the look in his eyes told her that he didn't think he was alive. The Blue Ninja tried to flirt with her, which made the Red Ninja smack him.

When it came out that her brother was the closest thing to a parent she had since she was too young to remember her parents when they vanished, the sensei suggested that she come live at the monastery with the ninjas and himself.

She quietly accepted the invitation and the Red Ninja, Skylor, went with her on her dragon (named Blaze in the hour that she'd had it) to help her pack her and her brother's stuff (she couldn't just throw them away) before she officially moved in.

Sensei Wu let her have her own room, because Skylor wasn't used to sharing and there was no way that he'd make her sleep with the noisy boys.

Within a couple of weeks, she learned a lot about her new housemates.

Skylor was the leader, apparently, and had been Wu's student since she was a little girl. She was good with swords, which was good because her primary weapon happened to be the Sword of Fire. Unlike the boys, she didn't seem to have any hobbies other than fighting and was rarely seen doing anything other than training.

Griffin apparently liked figure skating and ran away from home because his overly protective parents thought it was too dangerous and wanted to send him to some fancy private school where he'd be miserable for the rest of his life. He was good too, and Nya could see how it would help with his ninja-ing since he had the best balance on the team, except for Karloff, who was too big to push over.

Speaking of which, Karloff was very soft for such a big guy. She could hear him snore from her room, which was on the other side of the monastery, and apparently he has a habit of sleepwalking, which leads to him waking the others in the middle of the night. But he's very apologetic when he ruins their sleep or accidentally breaks their stuff. Nya quickly found a friend in him when she found that they shared an interest in building things.

Ash, on the other hand, had some kind of delusion that he was some kind of tough guy, despite losing most his sparring matches with the other ninjas. Before Nya showed up, he was the new guy, so she supposed that it might be because he didn't have as much training as the others. He had a bike which he used to maintain his image, but it was already ruined when Nya caught him reading a huge poetry book in secret.

They were all very nice. Ash had a bit of an ego, and Skylor didn't seem to know how to act like a human being, but they were nice.

It's just…

They didn't seem to care much about the fact that she was there because her brother was dead. Sure, she tried to deny it, but if he's not, then why didn't he get up after Samukai threw him overboard? Why didn't he come and save her?

They weren't even looking for him. Or if they were, they weren't telling her.

So, she used their printer and bunch of posters asking after her brother. She used the best, most recent photo she could find of her brother, and when she had what she deemed enough, she went to Jamanikai Village at the foot of the mountain and put up posters until she ran out well past midnight.

She watched the ninjas train while they were there, and while they were building the stables for the dragons, she trained by herself. At night, she sorted through the stuff she brought with her from Four Weapons, searching for Samurai armour and adjusting them to fit her.

One day, while everyone else was away, she found a book on Samurai and studied it until she heard the voices of the others and put it back where she found it.

Nobody contacted her about the posters.

But one day, everything changed and she found that she didn't have the time to make and put up more posters, because she heard someone screaming about Lord Garmadon, and she hurried all the way up the mountain to warn the ninja.

Amusingly, the boys got Skylor addicted to video games, which was where all four of them were when Nya came to warn them. They took the first chance they could find for some action, and Nya found some binoculars to watch the fight from a safe distance. After all, she'd only been training herself for a couple of weeks.

She watched as the dark figure, which turned out to be a small boy in a dark cloak, yelled something and got laughed at. She felt sorry for him, but she couldn't help but be a little mad when he ripped one of her posters off. Skylor appeared to be scolding him, and Ash, for some reason, started laughing. The boy threw a can at him, and the next thing she knew, Ash stuck him to a wooden pole by his cape.

Skylor yelled at Ash, and Karloff tried to climb up to free the boy, but he was apparently afraid of heights and went away to ask one of the villagers for something. When he came back, he set up a ladder and motioned to Griffin. Griffin climbed up, freed the boy, said something to him, and tried to run after him when he ran away, only for some villagers to start crowding him and the others excitedly, causing the boy to disappear towards the north.

When they came back, the first thing she did was smack Ash and listen to Skylor as she told Nya that the boy was Lloyd Garmadon, Lord Garmadon's son who ran away from school.

Sensei Wu, upon hearing what happened, scolded Ash as well.


End file.
